Several recent news items show that the new era is fast upon us-for example, the hostage-taking of some 55,000 credit card numbers at Creditcard.com. Not long before, a cracker was discovered to have been siphoning money into his bank account from . . .
Several recent news items show that the new era is fast upon us-for example, the hostage-taking of some 55,000 credit card numbers at Creditcard.com. Not long before, a cracker was discovered to have been siphoning money into his bank account from the gas pumps of a local service station. There are other crimes waiting to be perpetrated, if they haven't been already, including the electronic laundering of illicit money through offshore bank accounts and holding confidential medical information hostage, to name a couple. And the growing use of less-secure wireless networks-not to mention the physical theft of laptops-will create even more seams of vulnerability.

How bad is it?

"It's really easy to crack systems these days," said Don Reifer, president and CEO of Reifer Consultants, of Torrance, Calif. Reifer has abandoned home banking and given up DSL in favor of a 56K-bps modem because of security fears.